Ellis Medicine and St. Peter's Health Partners – two of the largest hospital systems in the Albany region – are banking on new programs seeking to reduce chronic illnesses, help people quit smoking, and expand access to health care for low-income patients to score the biggest possible share of $8 billion tied to an effort to overhaul Medicaid in New York.

Pamela Rehak, director of strategic and community planning for Albany-based St. Peter's, delivered that message during a hearing this morning about the state Department of Health's plan for spending the money over the next five years.

Rehak told a story about an elderly woman, identified as Mrs. Jones, with diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a lung illness with links to smoking.

Mrs. Jones' struggles to access primary care doctors and her overreliance on emergency rooms illustrated some key shortfalls of Medicaid, a government health care program covering millions of low-income and disabled New Yorkers, Rehak said.

Ellis and St. Peter's joint plan to spend some of that $8 billion hinges on providing a new team of health care workers to someone like Mrs. Jones. This would include new jobs for people called navigators – think various roles between home health aides and nurses.

"Through this process Mrs. Jones will become healthier and ideally be able to reengage in her community," Rehak said.

She spoke to a panel of 18 health care leaders, who will be making recommendations on how to spend the biggest chunk of those federal dollars, about $6.4 billion going toward plans seeking to reduce unnecessary hospital use in New York by 25 percent.

The meetings this week focused on plans submitted by more than 40 hospital systems, representing 1,400 different health care providers in New York. Details about dollar amounts sought will be presented after applications submitted this week are finalized by Public Consulting Group, a company hired by the state to handle the scoring process.

For Ellis, the Schenectady-based system with about 2,800 workers, and Albany-based St. Peter's, which has 12,500 employees, the plans hinge on some key factors of the region's health care landscape.

For example, there is a higher-than-average number of smokers in the Albany region compared to state average. Data also show the amount of unnecessary hospital visits in the region is higher than state averages.

Here is the data on the Albany region's health care landscape reported to the state Department of Health.

Here is the plan submitted by Ellis and St. Peter's in the competition for a share of the $6.4 billion.